Cat-and-mouse game

What is it with people and cartoons?

We've had people claiming that the Cat in the Hat is a coded symbol for the takeover of the world by the Illuminati.  A Saudi imam issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse because "the mouse is one of Satan's soldiers."  The Vatican looked gave a serious look into whether or not the Simpsons are Catholic.  A French academic published a paper making the claim that The Smurfs is communist propaganda.  There was an outcry by the seal-the-borders cadre here in the United States when it was revealed that Dora the Explorer might be an illegal immigrant.

And because all of that wasn't ridiculous enough, Salah Abdel Sadek, head of Egypt's State Information Service, has made the claim that violent extremism in the Middle East is due to...

... Tom & Jerry.

Yes, Tom & Jerry, the iconic cat-and-mouse duo whose goofy hijinks have delighted Saturday morning cartoon watchers for decades.  But their shenanigans may not be so innocent, Sadek claims:

[Tom & Jerry] portrays the violence in a funny manner and sends the message that, yes, I can hit him … and I can blow him up with explosives.  It becomes set in [the viewer’s] mind that this is natural...   The cartoon conveys negative habits like smoking and drinking alcohol, teaches children that stealing is normal, distorts the concept of justice, and helps children invent sinister plans using sharp instruments such as chainsaws.

Okay, can we just get one thing straight right from the outset?

Cartoon characters are not real.  Because of this, I do not expect the world to be like an episode of Scooby Doo.  Although I have to admit that it would be easier in a lot of ways if it did.  Then all we'd have to do is to pull the masks off of the Koch brothers, and it'd turn out that they were actually the carnival owners, and they'd have gotten away with taking over the government if it hadn't been for You Crazy Kids and Your Flea-Bitten Mutt.

Also, most children are perfectly capable of telling cartoons from real life.  I grew up watching Looney Tunes, and I never once thought it'd be a clever idea to drop an actual anvil on anyone.  I was aware right from the outset that if you shoot a gun in someone's face, it doesn't simply blow their nose around to the other side of their head.  I knew that I couldn't paint a picture of a tunnel onto a wall, and then run down it like it was real.

Further, I understood that if you step off a cliff, you will fall right away, not wait until you notice that you're in mid-air.

In other words, I got that there's a difference between cartoons and real life, a distinction that seems to have escaped Salah Abdel Sadek.

Of course, there's another reason that he's making the claim.  Blaming the problems in the Middle East on a pair of (Western) cartoon characters makes it easy to ignore the more troubling reality -- that extremism isn't going to be as easy to fix as telling your children to turn off the television.  In order to do anything substantive about extremism, you have to acknowledge the role of poverty, sectarianism, and the preaching of religious intolerance, all three of which the Egyptian government is reluctant to address.  That would require doing something difficult, such as addressing wealth inequity, legislating equal treatment under the law for all races and religions, and squelching the Muslim clerics who shriek about jihad against those who are "insulting Islam" by virtue of holding other beliefs.

Easier to blame a fictional cat and mouse, isn't it?

So there you have it.  All this time and money and effort, and to end the violence all we had to do was cut subscriptions to The Cartoon Network.  It'd be nice, wouldn't it?  Just shutting something off makes it go away.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way.  I know.  I've been trying that with Ann Coulter for years, to no avail.

The Red Menace of "Les Schtroumpfs"

(One of a series of reposts, for your enjoyment while I'm on vacation.  First posted in June 2011.)

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It's been a rough year for cartoon characters.

First, we had a Muslim cleric ranting about how Mickey Mouse was an Unclean Agent of Satan.  Then, the Seal-the-Borders cadre began to howl that Dora the Explorer was an illegal alien.  Not to be outdone, the Catholic church contributed their own little piece of surrealism with the claim that the Simpsons were clearly Roman Catholics.

And now, Antoine Buéno, a university lecturer in Paris, is claiming that the Smurfs are communists.

His treatise, entitled "Le Petit Livre Bleu: Analyse critique et politique de la société des Schtroumpfs," brings up two immediate questions:

1)  Did you know that the French for "Smurfs" was "les Schtroumpfs?"  I didn't.  I also defy you to say "les Schtroumpfs" without laughing.  It makes it even better if you say it with a fruity, Pépé le Pew accent.

2)  Is this guy kidding?  Or what?

In answer to the second question, let's look at his evidence:

• Smurfs take their meals in a communal dining hall.
• They have a single leader, who is a father-figure that they never refer to by name.
• Every effort is done collectively; they rarely strike out on their own, or show private initiative.
• Papa Smurf looks like Stalin.
• "Smurf" could be an acronym for "Small Men Under Red Force."

Well, I think we all have to admit that as evidence goes, that's pretty freakin' persuasive.  When you add the fact that Brainy Smurf looks a little like Leon Trotsky, I think we have what detective agencies call "an airtight case."

Thierry Culliford, son of the late Pierre Culliford, creator of the Smurfs, is outraged, and referred to Buéno's thesis as "grotesque."  Pierre Culliford, who went under the pen name "Peyo," was "not political," his son told reporters.  "When there were elections, he would ask my mother, 'What should I vote?'"

Buéno, of course, dismissed that, saying that Peyo was expressing communist themes in The Smurfs "unconsciously."  Because all cartoonists do that, you know.  Even comic strips are not free from it.  For example, don't you think that "Nancy" in the comic strip of the same name looks like Kim Jong Il?  Let's compare:

So, I think we can safely assume that cartoonists are unconsciously channeling all sorts of scary political themes in their work, and that from now on you should read the funny pages with that in mind.  Who knows what kind of dreadful political ideologies could be creeping into your subconscious while you're looking at "Marmaduke," "Blondie," or, god forbid, "Garfield?"

Buéno, for his part, is not backing down.  He says that his paper is "rigorous and thorough and documented."  About his claim of The Smurfs as having communist overtones, he told reporters, "It's so obvious I didn't think I'd have to spell it out."

So, anyway, there you have it.  Another tour de force from the halls of academia.  And we wonder why people think the members of the intelligentsia are a little bit cracked.

The Cat in the Red and White Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Mind Control Hat

There are times -- and I say this with all due affection toward my fellow human beings -- that I wish people would just get a freakin' grip on reality.

I mean, yesterday's post was bad enough.  We had several individuals, including (scarily enough) some higher-ups on the Chicago police force, who evidently forgot to read the "All resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer on movies like Minority Report and The Sixth Sense.

But at least the people in yesterday's post can, apparently, tell the difference between a real live human and a cartoon character, which is more than I can say for the folks I ran across last night.

As surprising as it may sound to those of us whose skulls aren't filled with cobwebs and dead insects, this sort of thing isn't unprecedented.  This is far from the first time that we have had someone who has thought that cartoon characters actually existed.  Back in 2008 there was a Muslim imam who issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, saying, "The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him... Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases."  Not to be outdone, there was a serious discussion in academic circles two years later over the question of whether Dora the Explorer was an illegal immigrant.  Since I started Skeptophilia late in 2010 I've actually written about two additional cases -- one of my first posts ever was about an inquiry done by the Vatican that concluded that the Simpsons were Catholic, and the following year I wrote about a serious academic study done in France that proved that the Smurfs are communists.

How, you might ask, could it get any more ludicrous?  Oh, it can, friends and neighbors.  It can.

Because now we find out the Dr. Seuss's iconic character "The Cat in the Hat" is actually a symbol for the Illuminati takeover of the civilized world.

Avoid looking directly into his evil, evil eyes.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'd like to be able to say that this is all a joke, that we're looking at yet another example of Poe's Law.  But no, these people seem to be entirely serious.  Here's a representative passage:

About the “Cat in the Hat” which incorporates symbolic content of the mind control programs. See Cat in the Hat movie book showing symbolism, such as the RED and WHITE Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Hat with the GRAMOPHONE HORN inside aka Victor Listening to his MASTERS Voice, FEEline Basement, and holding a “HOE”. Dr. Seuss worked for Army Propaganda and had ties to Standard Oil. It opens to find a public lethargic, unimaginative and un-moving, without eyes to see and ears to hear, to an apparent hidden ideology, Cold War Communism. The moving force, The People of the Pagan Cat (The Cult of Freya), enters the cosmic domain of the American public UNINVITED (Operation PAPERCLIP).”

Yes!  I see it all, now!  And the Fish was Senator Joseph McCarthy, warning the American public of the danger, but would anyone listen?  Nooooooo!

At the end of the story, we're told, the Cat makes everything okay... at least, it seems that way:

The Cat restores order to the mess of CHAOS with Magic and a Luciferian illusion. Finally, Freya Rides and Wotan Reigns again, the cosmos is restored to its natural order and beauty (archaic paganism), and the fish is left with the dilemma of the Cat People’s ILLUMINATED mysticism, magic; and the mysterious SECRET ORDER over CHAOS; and Christianity.”

Ha ha!  Yes!  What?

And that's not all of the bad stuff that Dr. Seuss was up to.  I bet you never even knew that the famous Horton Hears a Who is actually about the New World Order.  First, there's the fact that the name "Horton" comes from "Horus" + "Aton."  And yes, I'm referring to the Egyptian gods, which are clearly relevant here.  But that's not all:

Here is some of what was revealed about what is currently happening on planet earth.

1. The whos live on a speck (earth).  The mayor of whoville communicated with Horton (god in the sky) who warns him that his speck is not safe.

2. No one will listen to the mayor who is trying warn everyone of the message. He points our that weather changes which are happening are precusors [sic] to the end of the world.

3. He declares that "martial law" should be imposed (this is a kids [sic] movie) and everyone who wants to survive should go underground to the safety bunkers.

4. A black vulture named "vlad" steals the speck from horton and drops it causing the first catastrophe. (planet x passing)

5. All the whos join together and form a wormhole, break the bounds of thier [sic] universe and are heard by horton (god) and are thereby spared and sent to the new world.

And don't even get me started about The Lorax.

You know, the world has got to be a seriously scary place when you see evil symbolism and portents of doom everywhere, even in children's cartoons.  It actually makes me feel kind of sorry for people who believe this stuff.  Now, to be fair, I'm willing to believe that sometimes I might be overly trusting of people -- I tend, usually, to think that most people are acting out of benevolent (or at least morally neutral) motives, most of the time.  And I will admit that there are cases when I'm probably wrong.

But fer cryin' in the sink, I would prefer to think the best of my fellow humans, and occasionally get kicked in the ass, than I would to go around thinking that every cloud in the sky has been seeded with poison by the Evil Government Overlords.  You have to wonder, if that's the way these folks see the world and the human race, why they think it's so important to blow the whistle.  Nihilism would be, on the whole, more pleasant.

Or maybe they're just batshit crazy.  I dunno.

The Red Menace of "Les Schtroumpfs"

It's been a rough year for cartoon characters.

First, we had a Muslim cleric ranting about how Mickey Mouse was an Unclean Agent of Satan.  Then, the Seal-the-Borders cadre began to howl that Dora the Explorer was an illegal alien.  Not to be outdone, the Catholic church contributed their own little piece of surrealism with the claim that the Simpsons were clearly Roman Catholics.

And now, Antoine Buéno, a university lecturer in Paris, is claiming that the Smurfs are communists.

His treatise, entitled "Le Petit Livre Bleu: Analyse critique et politique de la société des Schtroumpfs," brings up two immediate questions:

1)  Did you know that the French for "Smurfs" was "les Schtroumpfs?"  I didn't.  I also defy you to say "les Schtroumpfs" without laughing.  It makes it even better if you say it with a fruity, Pépé le Pew accent.

2)  Is this guy kidding?  Or what?

In answer to the second question, let's look at his evidence:

• Smurfs take their meals in a communal dining hall.
• They have a single leader, who is a father-figure that they never refer to by name.
• Every effort is done collectively; they rarely strike out on their own, or show private initiative.
• Papa Smurf looks like Stalin.
• "Smurf" could be an acronym for "Small Men Under Red Force."

Well, I think we all have to admit that as evidence goes, that's pretty freakin' persuasive.  When you add the fact that Brainy Smurf looks a little like Leon Trotsky, I think we have what detective agencies call "an airtight case."

Thierry Culliford, son of the late Pierre Culliford, creator of the Smurfs, is outraged, and referred to Buéno's thesis as "grotesque."  Pierre Culliford, who went under the pen name "Peyo," was "not political," his son told reporters.  "When there were elections, he would ask my mother, 'What should I vote?'"

Buéno, of course, dismissed that, saying that Peyo was expressing communist themes in The Smurfs "unconsciously."  Because all cartoonists do that, you know.  Even comic strips are not free from it.  For example, don't you think that "Nancy" in the comic strip of the same name looks like Kim Jong Il?  Let's compare:

So, I think we can safely assume that cartoonists are unconsciously channeling all sorts of scary political themes in their work, and that from now on you should read the funny pages with that in mind.  Who knows what kind of dreadful political ideologies could be creeping into your subconscious while you're looking at "Marmaduke," "Blondie," or, god forbid, "Garfield?"

Buéno, for his part, is not backing down.  He says that his paper is "rigorous and thorough and documented."  About his claim of The Smurfs as having communist overtones, he told reporters, "It's so obvious I didn't think I'd have to spell it out."

So, anyway, there you have it.  Another tour de force from the halls of academia.  And we wonder why people think the members of the intelligentsia are a little bit cracked.

D'Oh!

New from the News You'll Think I'm Making Up But I'm Not department, officials at the Vatican have declared that after some years of serious study, they have found that The Simpsons are Catholics.

First, we had the Muslims claiming that Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan.  Then we had the Seal-the-Borders Cadre howling that Dora the Explorer was an illegal immigrant.  Now, we have the leaders of one of the most powerful and influential religious sects in the world claiming a family of cartoon characters as members of the flock.

The official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore, has stated that a Jesuit study of the program has found that Homer and company "pray before meals, and in their own way believe in the beyond," and that this has led them to the inescapable conclusion that they are Roman Catholics.

I had always thought that becoming a Catholic was more difficult than that.  I figured that if you weren't born to it, you at least had to take a class or something.  Now, we find that technically, you don't even have to exist. 

Interestingly, the producer of the show, Al Jean, has weighed in on the topic.  "We've pretty clearly shown that Homer is not Catholic," Jean was quoted as saying, when he found out about the Vatican press release, citing the fact that Homer really would not be into the whole no-meat-on-Fridays thing.  (Which, as an aside, I thought the Catholics didn't even do any more?  I never seem to be able to keep up with what's on the Sin List and what's on the Not So Much A Sin Any More List.)  Jean also went on record as stating that actually, the Simpson family are members of the Springfield Presbylutheran Church.

Predictably, my reaction is:  WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE GET A GRIP?  Cartoon characters, which last time I checked aren't real, can't be "actually" anything.  The question of what breed of dog Scooby-Doo actually is is meaningless.  The question of whether Tinky-Winky the Teletubbie is actually gay is meaningless.  Are we reasonably clear on this point now?  Excellent.  Now all of you who were worrying about such things can go back to passing the time by chewing on the straps of your straitjackets, okay?

I'm simultaneously amused and amazed at how much time and energy people will spend arguing over issues for which no answer exists.  On the lighthearted side was the pair of students who came to me to help them settle an argument over who would win in a fight, Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Captain James T. Kirk.  (My answer was that Kirk would clearly win.  He would whip out his superior overacting skills and leave Picard in a fetal position, twitching on the floor.  At least that's what always happens to me when I see William Shatner.)  However, this same tendency to debate the unanswerable plagues us all the way up the scale, to the endless battles (both figurative and literal) that the religious fight with each other over what "god really wants us to do."

It's pretty critical, I think, to establish the ground rules for what is a decidable proposition.  For me, one of the most fundamental ground rules is the reliance on hard evidence.  You want me to believe something, agree with a viewpoint, accept what you're saying?  Show me the goods, and you're halfway there.  Whatever you're claiming had better be planted in the firm earth of reality, or I'm much more likely to roll my eyes or simply guffaw in your face.

So if you want me to take you seriously, don't come to me and start blathering about the religious views of cartoon characters.  Except, of course, for Bullwinkle, who is clearly a Zen Buddhist.  But other than that, if you spend your time making pronouncements about the "actual" views of fictional characters, all you'll have accomplished is destroying your own credibility.